I recently spent six months teaching revision strategies (and strategies for emotionally navigating the revision process) to creative writers across genres through the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. One of the resources I drew on and recommended to writers most often during those months was fellow Minneapolis writing teacher Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew’s book Living Revision: A Writer’s Craft as Spiritual Practice.

In Tips for Getting Back to Writing After Time Away, I shared strategies for returning to our writing practices when there’s been some kind of break or lull. But what if you want or need to get back, not just to writing in general, but to a particular project that’s ended up on hold? (That novel you’d drafted two-thirds of, the short story you’d just finished outlining before something bad happened, the project you received edits on but haven’t actually revised yet…) What if you just can’t find your motivation or momentum again?
 
Well, first of all, check out the suggestions in that more general post. Be gentle with and kind to yourself. Find ways back to creative fun. Seek out support and community.
 
You’ll also want to start guiding yourself back to the energy of the specific project that has been set aside. Here are a variety of concrete approaches you can try, starting with whatever resonates with you right now:

We all know the really loud idea that “real writers” write every day no matter what. But we also know that human beings take breaks from our jobs and our hobbies because we have complicated, interesting, difficult, beautiful, embodied, messy, and hopefully long lives.

Writers—and here’s a big important secret—are in fact human beings.

The writers I know have days, weeks, months, sometimes even years of not writing (or not writing regularly, or not writing in our core genres) for lots of reasons. For example:

• We have bodies and they don’t always work great.
• We have caregiving responsibilities that are sometimes all-encompassing.
• Our other work doesn’t always leave time and energy for writing, especially in combination with body challenges and/or caregiving responsibilities.
• Grief bowls us over.
• We run into fun opportunities and decide to embrace them, even if that means setting aside our writing for a while.

Life happens! It is okay to take a break from a creative practice.
 
The problem is that, although most people want to go back to writing, it can feel really hard after time away. If that’s you, here are some strategies that will help.